1.125–177

The disguised goddess sees the household at its nadir, with Telemachus sitting morosely amid the revelers, unable to exert any authority as they party through another day (113–17). His rising to greet the guest at the door is the first glimmer of hope for the beleaguered royal family.

It is no accident that this turn for the better coincides with a gesture of hospitality. The rituals for welcoming and entertaining strangers lie at the heart of the Odyssey’s portrait of human experience. Though there are traces of Mycenaean civilization in both Homeric epics, the societies we encounter in the Odyssey largely reflect Greek civilization in the 9^th and 8^th centuries BCE, as isolated towns began to recover from what looks like a drastic decline after the fall of the great palace economies of Mycenae and Pylos. In a period marked by migrations and colonizing expeditions across the Mediterranean, the customs for receiving strangers would be crucial, both for guests and hosts. The geographical isolation of many Greek towns, set in a landscape dominated by mountains, would make the arrival of strangers a moment charged with both excitement and anxiety. The Odyssey is the first of many stories in Greek literature and myth of strangers coming to town and bringing death with them.

Athena is the first stranger to arrive in the poem. A small detail hints at the true nature her mission:

ἔγχος μέν ῥ᾽ ἔστησε φέρων πρὸς κίονα μακρὴν
δουροδόκης ἔντοσθεν ἐυξόου, ἔνθα περ ἄλλα
ἔγχε᾽ Ὀδυσσῆος ταλασίφρονος ἵστατο πολλά;

He (Telemachus) took her spear to the tall pillar, 
setting it in the well-polished cabinet, where the other 
swords of patient-hearted Odysseus stood.

Odyssey 1.127–29

The goddess’s spear will hold a place for one of Odysseus’s, just as she will fill in for the king as his son’s adviser until he returns. Taking the role of disguised stranger is practical for Athena, as she can insinuate herself into the palace without undue attention from the suitors. At the same time, she becomes an avatar of Odysseus, who will himself play the part over and over as he arrives in each new place, until his last adventure in his own palace. The return of Odysseus starts here.

The poet’s full description of the gestures that welcome the guest draw on traditional language that recurs throughout the poem:

χέρνιβα δ᾽ ἀμφίπολος προχόῳ ἐπέχευε φέρουσα
καλῇ χρυσείῃ ὑπὲρ ἀργυρέοιο λέβητος,
νίψασθαι: παρὰ δὲ ξεστὴν ἐτάνυσσε τράπεζαν.
σῖτον δ᾽ αἰδοίη ταμίη παρέθηκε φέρουσα,
εἴδατα πόλλ᾽ ἐπιθεῖσα, χαριζομένη παρεόντων:

The servant brought water, pouring it from a pitcher, 
golden and beautiful, into a silver basin, 
to wash their hands. She pulled a polished table beside them, 
and a discrete housekeeper brought in bread, 
adding many other kinds of food, generous with her provisions.

Odyssey 1.136–42 = 4.52–59, 7.172–76, 10.368–72, 15.135–39, 17.91–95

The anonymous stranger receives the same hospitality offered repeatedly in the poem, from the palaces of Menelaus and Alkinous to the house of Circe the witch. Repetition like this bothered scholars in the 19^th century, seeming to signal a lack of imagination and the work of later inferior poets who weakened the “original” vision of Homer. Their approach was to identify which of the passages used the language most smoothly (in their opinion), marking it as the original work, and then try to imagine a poem stripped of what they saw as later awkward additions. This approach was largely obviated by the pioneering scholarship of Milman Parry, an American classicist studying at the Sorbonne, who demonstrated that the repetition in Homeric epic could be the product of a system of formulaic language designed to facilitate the composition of poems like the Iliad and Odyssey in an oral tradition. Instead of fretting over the lack of originality that the repetition seemed to exemplify, Parry began by acknowledging the central role of repeated forms in the poems, then searching for a new way to understand Homer’s creativity within a traditional style designed, as it seemed to Parry, to facilitate the composition of poems like the Iliad and Odyssey without the aid of writing. This is too complex a subject for this essay, but in our reading of the story, we will follow Parry’s lead, looking for evidence of how repetition works to create meaning in the poetry.

Having done his best to distance the guest from the noisy disorder of the suitors, Telemachus gives voice to his despair. If Odysseus were to return, the suitors would regret their wanton consumption of the royal stores, but he is certainly dead, his bleached bones rolling somewhere in the surf. His words here are the first example of a frequent refrain in the poem, the expression of despair over the death of Odysseus by someone who is in the presence of another who is helping to ensure the hero’s return. We will hear it again from Telemachus, from Eumaeus, and from Penelope more than once (14.132–40; 16.194–200; 23.62–68).

These occasions contribute to a persistent irony in the story, as characters struggle to cope with the sadness of loss while, often unknowingly, working to prevent that loss.

Having seen to his guest’s needs, Telemachus asks for some identification:

Who is he? Where from? Who are his parents? How did he get here? On a boat? Not on foot, surely? And finally, the most important question, is he a friend of Odysseus? This part of the conversation completes the appropriate process for receiving strangers, modeled here for the first time. The order of events is important: refreshment first, then questions. No matter who you are in the Odyssey, you are entitled to a meal and rest before you proceed to your business. Failing to observe the proper forms is a mark of carelessness at best, as in the case of Alkinous, king of the Phaeacians, who is rebuked for neglecting the scruffy sailor who appears at his door (7.155–66), or savagery, as in the case of Polyphemus, who immediately asks Odysseus who he is and then instead of offering his guests a meal, eats two of them (9.255–95).

But receiving guests is about more than etiquette. Generous hosts confer some status on anyone whom they welcome into their midst. However little they can discover about him, he at least now fills a role within human civilization, where identity—and thus a good reputation—can be preserved. There is also some degree of protection for the host society in welcoming guests properly. The gods, particularly Zeus, look favorably on good hosts. And by bringing a stranger into their human order and learning his identity they defuse some of the potential for harm in the freedom that anonymity can confer. Knowledge is power in the Odyssey. Knowing someone’s name gives you some leverage over that person. Likewise, not giving up this information empowers the visitor, who is not constrained by any stains on his reputation and can move more freely in the new society. Odysseus, as we will see, withholds his name for as long as he can when arriving in a new place, waiting until he is assured of his safety. The revelation of his name, by him or someone else, is invariably a dramatic high point in the story, leading up to his final and most important epiphany in Ithaka, when Penelope acknowledges him as her husband (23.205–30).

Further Reading

Clarke, H. 1963. “Telemachus and the Telemachia. American Journal of Philology 84: 129–145.

Felson, N. 1997. Regarding Penelope, 67–91. 2^nd ed. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press.

Murnaghan, S. 1987. Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey, 34–37; 159–166. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Rose, G. 1967. “The Quest of Telemachus." Transactions of the American Philological Association 98: 391–398.

Thalman, W. 1992. The Odyssey: An Epic of Return, 31–38. New York: Twayne Publishers.